Third-gen iPod touch tracked in online logs

Proof of a major update to the iPod touch has solidified with online stats now showing a mystery iPod 3,1 device using apps.

Analytics firm Pinch Media, which spotted the iPhone 3GS roaming online last year, now says it's seen the device string for the new iPod multiple times since April.

At least "a few dozen" different examples have been spotted and have all exhibited a familiar pattern of running about two dozen major, frequently used third-party apps. Few common threads exist other than the apps' popularity, Pinch says. The usage pattern repeats the one seen for the iPhone 3GS and directly suggests that Apple is testing compatibility with the new iPod touch to guard against any show-stopping flaws before the device goes live.

Signs of iPod 3,1 were first seen in early iPhone 3.0 betas, where the hardware ID was shown alongside present and, at the time, unreleased Apple handhelds. As before, Apple's naming scheme alludes to a substantial overhaul rather than just a minor refresh: the first number always refers to a major generational leap while the second refers to less conspicuous updates. Today's second-generation iPod touch is, accordingly, usually listed as iPod 2,1.

Determining when this new iPod touch will be released based on this data is more difficult. The iPhone 3GS was seen as early as October 2008 but wasn't released until eight months later -- something unlikely to repeat itself with the iPod, which normally borrows components from the iPhone that preceded it and needs less initial testing as a result. In the short two-year history of Apple's touchscreen devices, the iPod touch has always been updated in a special music-themed event held in September.

Likely to receive the same CPU and GPU bumps the iPhone 3GS got. We'll probably also see a video camera built-in, simply because there's no reason not to have one (and having more devices for camera-centric apps to run on is always a plus).

The iPhone 3G is 1,2 and the iPhone 3G[S] is 2,1. There is also an iPhone 3,1 that has yet to materialize. Note there are both iPod 2,2 and iPod 3,1 references. Maybe we'll get a larger media device along with the traditional iPod touch based off the iPhone.

All native and integrated nicely, a iPhone minus the $70-$120 a month AT&T %*#$!!!

1. They will not upgrade the camera. it would make all 3GS (real revenue) users mad.
2. It will not offer VOIP with Skype. It competes with AT&T.
3. Guessing here but I doubt the processor will be any stronger. The current one is problematic (story has already been .covered)
4. Apple better have OLED. It is and has been done. Apple would be smart to follow the puck this time.

My buddy just picked up an iPod Touch for his son (8 years old) he thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.

He's 8.

The Average Buyer isn't 8 years old.

My camera on my iPhone sucks.

Regardless of my posts, I love the iPhone/Touch, I hate Apple and AT&T for not bringing it to its full potential.

The Palm Pre is front runner right now in my opinion. Apple, please get off your ass and get multi tasking on the phone/Touch.

Notifications are not enough. That's already been done in the 1990's and the camer sucks even on the 3GS. Yes, 10 years later they got video (who wants to edit video on their phone?).

The Camera Sucks and is not even close to standards these days.

Too many phones blow the iPhone out of the Universe. Apple has the App Store.
Every major phone vendor out there has the apps I want.
I don't need the 24,999 Crapple Apps.

I want an app that isn't a GAME. That is Apple's cruch now. They want a gaming phone.

1. They will not upgrade the camera. it would make all 3GS (real revenue) users mad.
2. It will not offer VOIP with Skype. It competes with AT&T.
3. Guessing here but I doubt the processor will be any stronger. The current one is problematic (story has already been .covered)
4. Apple better have OLED. It is and has been done. Apple would be smart to follow the puck this time.

My buddy just picked up an iPod Touch for his son (8 years old) he thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.

He's 8.

The Average Buyer isn't 8 years old.

My camera on my iPhone sucks.

Regardless of my posts, I love the iPhone/Touch, I hate Apple and AT&T for not bringing it to its full potential.

The Palm Pre is front runner right now in my opinion. Apple, please get off your ass and get multi tasking on the phone/Touch.

Notifications are not enough. That's already been done in the 1990's and the camer sucks even on the 3GS. Yes, 10 years later they got video (who wants to edit video on their phone?).

The Camera Sucks and is not even close to standards these days.

Too many phones blow the iPhone out of the Universe. Apple has the App Store.
Every major phone vendor out there has the apps I want.
I don't need the 24,999 Crapple Apps.

I want an app that isn't a GAME. That is Apple's cruch now. They want a gaming phone.

The Pre?? I have yet to read a good review of the thing in real use situations. I've heard that you get a 2-3 hour battery life if you use the multi-tasking much. I've read that return rates are high because the hardware keeps falling apart. And I've read that the couple dozen apps that are available are pretty drab. No thanks. I'm sure Sprint will sell plenty to their customers, but it's not something that's going to draw customers away from the iPhone in any quantity.

In addition, I find the camera to be pretty reasonable on my 3GS. The megapixel count is low, but the optics seem to be decent and the sensor has surprisingly reasonable response in lower light. It doesn't match my Canon, but it's also always there in my pocket. It's possible it could be better, but it certainly doesn't "suck".

As for Skype, it's already on the App Store! Go download it if you want to make free calls on wi-fi.

It's also a no-brainer that they'll upgrade the processor. It'd probably be cheaper to use the more powerful processor in the 3GS because of economies of scale. And I doubt Apple is worried about making 3GS users mad-- after all, the last iPod Touch had a much faster processor than the iPhone 3G and no one complained.

But Apple is prodding AT&T with a sharp stick in the rectum lately for their slow arse network, etc etc.

iPod Touch with VOIP/Skype native would be perfect and they would sell millions....

The poor mans jesus phone...excellent for this down economy.

Apple knew it going into the release of the 3GS. Who's to blame Apple or AT&T?
The contract had to have an out for new releases of the phone (I'm a dumbass sales person but I would have had plans for future products (Apple & Steve isn't the naive).

iPod Touch with VOIP/Skype native would be perfect and they would sell millions....
Again Never going to happen Apple caved to AT&T. Apple had the strong hand in this and didn't choose to use it.

The poor mans Jesus phone...excellent for this down economy.[/QUOTE]

The iPhone is not a "Jesus Phone". It's a tool to do "stuff".

There are many other phones out that can run multiple apps (including GPS) that doesnt harm the phone/Touch.

The Palm Pre is front runner right now in my opinion. Apple, please get off your ass and get multi tasking on the phone/Touch.

so the pre is a front runner because it supports third party multitasking? Give me a break. You probably think that Vista is better than Leopard because it can run on more different pc's than Leopard. The multitasking that the iPhone now supports is sufficient and most efficient of its kind todate. Multitasking will come to the iPhone when the technology is ready for it. Sorry but the pre is Palms best yet weak attempt to stay afloat. The Pre will only delay the inevitable. Innovate or sink is and has always been the law of technology.

Posted by the door post at the post office the post man posted his last post-millennial post card with a Penny Black postage stamp via the Royal Post.

I bet it will be here before Christmas. Oh, my God! That means I will be asked to replace my sons' for the 3rd time. That definitely I don't like.

Innovation can't be stopped. At Apple, NEW is not new. It is everyday event. Get ready, Apple is about to kick ass again. And this time, PSP is about to experience what happened to WALKMAN. Quote me on that! And as for wannabe, copycat Microsoft Zune, the death knell is about to ring. Quote me on that too.

1. They will not upgrade the camera. it would make all 3GS (real revenue) users mad.
2. It will not offer VOIP with Skype. It competes with AT&T.
3. Guessing here but I doubt the processor will be any stronger. The current one is problematic (story has already been .covered)
4. Apple better have OLED. It is and has been done. Apple would be smart to follow the puck this time.

My buddy just picked up an iPod Touch for his son (8 years old) he thinks it's the greatest thing in the world.

He's 8.

The Average Buyer isn't 8 years old.

My camera on my iPhone sucks.

Regardless of my posts, I love the iPhone/Touch, I hate Apple and AT&T for not bringing it to its full potential.

The Palm Pre is front runner right now in my opinion. Apple, please get off your ass and get multi tasking on the phone/Touch.

Notifications are not enough. That's already been done in the 1990's and the camer sucks even on the 3GS. Yes, 10 years later they got video (who wants to edit video on their phone?).

The Camera Sucks and is not even close to standards these days.

Too many phones blow the iPhone out of the Universe. Apple has the App Store.
Every major phone vendor out there has the apps I want.
I don't need the 24,999 Crapple Apps.

I want an app that isn't a GAME. That is Apple's cruch now. They want a gaming phone.

what a troll! haha, dont even want to be discreet about it huh? dont even respond to this guy

anyway..

apple will keep the same chip but just bump up the MHz like they have done in the past. they'll add the camera bc they'll sell more ipods and more apps (the 3GS camera seems pretty nice to me). OLED would be cool but i dont think they need to add it yet.

edit: and he joined in june 2009!! hahaha! and he calls himself "iPhone..." for cred, this guy is hilarious! and bitter

Well your statement implies that ms doesn't innovate. I hate to shatter your world view but they do. Even though they innovate less than Apple does. They do innovate. Take their web development framework for instance. Apple is no where close to what ms has. Silverlight is a beautiful enviroment to develop client side web applications. I'm still waiting for Apple to make a good web developing tool like ms has. Office, no need to elaborate further. And if you haven't noticed that in all the area's where they don't innovate enough or well enough they are loosing market. MS is still loosing market on the OS side. Mobile as well as desktop. If they don't do something and remain in this position they will sink. Yes the Titanic can sink. So ms is a beautiful example of a sinking ship. But sinking doesn't happen over night. So if they don't mend their ship and make more water they will sink.

Posted by the door post at the post office the post man posted his last post-millennial post card with a Penny Black postage stamp via the Royal Post.

Beyond a camera I wonder if the new iPod Touch will integrate the compass and GPS as well. GPS is lessly likely since it isn't as important an interface element, but if compass is supposed to be a new input method to assist the accelerometer than it should be in the iPod Touch too.

Last year at this time, Apple had a similar promotion as this year "* f youre a college student or a faculty or staff member at any grade level and you buy a new Mac through September 8, you can get a free iPod touch.*

note the asterisk, the explanation is

"*Buy a qualifying Mac and iPod with your Apple education discount from May 27, 2009, through September 8, 2009, and receive an online rebate up to $229, except where otherwise required by state law."

Last year, when I bought my son a 17-inch MacBook he got an iPod Touch 8Gb for free, however, you couldn't apply a rebate to a higher priced model. I wanted to get him the 16Gb iPod Touch and told the Apple store I would pay the $100 difference or whatever it was so he had the 16Gb model. They wouldn't do it. The deal was only for the lower end model.

This year it appears to be on any iPod touch and the "free" iPod is a rebate process. Nothing wrong with that AND you can apply the $229 to any iPod Touch (or at least the rules don't note a restriction.

So, to me this is a classic "clear the warehouse out of all iPod Touches to make way for the new models" - that's what this promotion is all about.

The present promotion ends in early September so figure that on September 15 or 22, Apple will have an annoucement with immediate availability on some models and other fancier models available on or about October 15.

I don't believe the iPod Classic is going anywhere, persay, not with SSD iPods still lingering around the 32GB size (although that may shoot up to 64GB this fall); the need for high capacity HDD iPod devices is still there. So, HDD is a given, but the form factor is not. By all accounts, the Classic's click wheel, small screen, and lack of an OS make it horribly outdated in the iPod family, making the iPod Classic the ugly ducking. Perhaps Apple will re-incarnate it as a larger device, with a 5"-7" touch screen. HDDs necessitate larger/thicker devices anyway, so IMO the Classic would be perfect to overhaul. Of course, the new device would cease to be the "Classic," but it would nevertheless fulfill the need for a more modern high capacity HDD based device in the iPod family.

I can't help but recall somebody at Apple saying that the iPod Touch devices would go in a different direction than the iPhone. This makes very good sense considering the markets are different. So I see this coming 3.xx device as being a major departure from the current form factor devices.

This doesn't mean the current Touch disappears, it will be updated, just that a big brother is coming. It is a given anyway that the current Touch gets an upgrade as verification of such an upgrade is in the logs. This is likely to be a modest speed upgrade with the GPS and Compass.

3.1 I expect will be a feature rich and larger device. I suspect many will be surprised. Not by it's size mind you, which will still go in a large pocket, but by the functionality and capability crammed into the device. It might realistically have 1GB of RAM and a 128GB of storage. This will be a major device release.

All native and integrated nicely, a iPhone minus the $70-$120 a month AT&T %*#$!!!

there's an app for that
i use callglobal app (very clear to call japan and finland, cheap 45 min to japan land line for $2.13)
i also have truphone which will work only its more expensive there are others do a voip search in the app store, but there is no review site to give the customers perspective and compare contrast those available, i just kept trying some and used others suggestions then discovered callglobal and very happy with it pennytel works for some but for me took too long to set up there is a thread on voip

as for MS innovation
lets see ....marketing... IE given away free, bundling MS office to slow moving enterprise, exchange, they won early wars battles by integration at the enterprise level...MS out gunned apple while apple was asleep at the wheel, now its apples and others turn as the environment has changed through the empowerment of the internet and broadband, apple is doing the opposite innovation from the consumer faster moving target then pulled kicking and screaming into the enterprise..

There's no camera in the touch because the touch is thinner than the phone.
I don't think the new camera is any smaller than the last. It would be a smart move to add one, but unless they're bulking up the 3G touch with a larger battery, I don't see it happening. (I don't know if switching to an OLED screen would free up enough space.)

The Classic should be dropped and replaced with an iPod Touch-based HDD iPod. And, now that i think about it, putting a HDD inside a touch would give them plenty of depth to add the camera.

And a 7" touch makes no sense. It's larger to the point that it's no longer pocketable, but still too small to do anything other than show slightly-higher-quality movies. If the device can't fit in your pocket, there's no reason -not- to go to a 10" screen and make it a distinct computing platform.

This is an interesting analysis. I know many people who already refer to this product as the iTouch.

Nah, they won't get rid of it even if that's what people call it - it's all iPod. They wouldn't want to change the name to something not as easily recognizable (marketing wise). If someone sees iTouch and they don't know Apple changed the name they might not think about it - Apple has spent a long time building up the mind-share of "iPod" - no way they'd drop it just because some people call it the iTouch (personally I just call it the "Touch" as iTouch just sounds too hokey for me).

Also - I went to the National Botanical Gardens last weekend and took some d@mn awesome close up pics with my 3Gs - seriously look just as good as a stand alone camera (not a DSLR or anything but you know what I mean...)

ipod classic still has a market... even if they up the ipod touch to 64 GB which they probably will do, high capacity still needs to be a viable option in the ipod lineup. yes, higher than 64 GB.

I agree. I own both a Touch and a Classic, and the Classic is the one I use all the time. The advantages of having my entire iTunes library with me all the time cannot be overstated. It's not just capacity either, I would not want an iPod that did not have physical controls. The touch screens, for me, are little more than an annoyance.

There's no camera in the touch because the touch is thinner than the phone.

Maybe not in Touch 2,2 as that is likely to morph into the low cost model Touch. In Touch 3,1 though I see a whole set of possibilities. In any event this highlights where I see the current Touch going, it will become the lower end iPod and fill that role profitably for Apple by using high integration SoC technology.

Quote:

I don't think the new camera is any smaller than the last. It would be a smart move to add one, but unless they're bulking up the 3G touch with a larger battery, I don't see it happening. (I don't know if switching to an OLED screen would free up enough space.)

The Classic should be dropped and replaced with an iPod Touch-based HDD iPod. And, now that i think about it, putting a HDD inside a touch would give them plenty of depth to add the camera.

I think Classic will morph into a hybrid design for at least a couple of generations. This mainly due to the professional appeal in the Classic and the need for the click wheel in that market. In any event you are right about the HDD module as that gives Apple the option to go solid state in a more expensive unit.

Quote:

And a 7" touch makes no sense. It's larger to the point that it's no longer pocketable, but still too small to do anything other than show slightly-higher-quality movies. If the device can't fit in your pocket, there's no reason -not- to go to a 10" screen and make it a distinct computing platform.

I reject the above because a 7" device would be very pocketable. Plus it would be possible to do 720P easily in such a device. That with a vast increase in movie playback quality. Going to a ten inch class screen means loosing all portability. Further the web sour rock on a 7 in screen in portable usage.

All native and integrated nicely, a iPhone minus the $70-$120 a month AT&T %*#$!!!

When I upgraded to the 3GS, I put Skype on my first gen iPhone. It has replaced my landline at home. I just keep my old iPhone in airplane mode and turn the WiFi on. It works great as a WiFi phone for home. I pay only $30 a year for unlimited calls to anywhere in the US and Canada. You can also get a real phone # that others can call you at for another $30 a yr.

Maybe not in Touch 2,2 as that is likely to morph into the low cost model Touch. In Touch 3,1 though I see a whole set of possibilities. In any event this highlights where I see the current Touch going, it will become the lower end iPod and fill that role profitably for Apple by using high integration SoC technology.

I think Classic will morph into a hybrid design for at least a couple of generations. This mainly due to the professional appeal in the Classic and the need for the click wheel in that market. In any event you are right about the HDD module as that gives Apple the option to go solid state in a more expensive unit.

I reject the above because a 7" device would be very pocketable. Plus it would be possible to do 720P easily in such a device. That with a vast increase in movie playback quality. Going to a ten inch class screen means loosing all portability. Further the web sour rock on a 7 in screen in portable usage.

Dave

The 120 g classic is called classic for a reason. It will remain in the lineup .Its a beautiful machine, I am about to buy an 160 g refub soon .

The Classic should be dropped and replaced with an iPod Touch-based HDD iPod. And, now that i think about it, putting a HDD inside a touch would give them plenty of depth to add the camera.

They won't do a touch interface with an HDD. Various reason, mainly battery life and durability. Considering some programs actually want you to shake your iPod. Also, I read somewhere, long ago, that the interface would have too much lag using an HDD unless you want to spin it constantly. Which would result in poor battery life.
It maybe be hard for some to swollow (so keep your old one, it's that easy) but I'm going to guess Apple will drop the classic B4 there is a storage comparable touch.